WOMAN:

Um

Your name

Still in my mouth

Singing

My collarbone feels you

Where you are not

The shadows

The shape of your

Absence

Haunts the air

Darkness

It’s an absence of

You know.

I was watching the water gather along the edges of the pavement on the side walk.

The water here by the ocean.

It’s so lonely.

You can feel its hope to return to that large body of water—that ocean, whole, unfettered by the clogging effect of human hands.

Not that it’s completely impervious.

Oh my goodness I wish you didn’t have to listen right now

Because you

Are

Beneath

Somewhere

The grass looks nice

And I’m talking out loud

To the air

Which feels paper thin

Always

Now

You are

Not,

Well

You are

(laughs at the irony of the moment)

My body—

Well I was thinking

In poetic terms like you always did

I was thinking

How I used to be a pathway to your presence

Now I am a legend

Where people can trace

Where you are not

Just a representation

You’re beauty baffles me.

I looked in the mirror the other day wishing you were there to bite my bottom lip

And kiss the pain away.

I miss you—

I miss you most when I say goodbye because I’d rather have an eternal goodbye with you

Where you could just watch me say it instead of disappear beneath

This

Everything here smells like your opposite

Air

Spring

Carefree

Moving